Biennalocene – Labour, Infrastructures & Curatorial Responsibility
Date: Monday, 25 May 2026
Time: 3PM BST (4:00 PM CEST / 10:00 AM EDT)
Duration: 1h 30min
Open to: Everyone
Admission: Free (Registration required) Location: Online via Zoom
ABOUT THE WEBINAR
The term Biennalocene, developed through the research of the Institute of Radical Imagination in Venice, emerges from a militant inquiry into the conditions of cultural labour within the biennial ecosystem. It reflects on the rapid global proliferation of biennials and their entanglement with processes of cultural gentrification, extractive economies and the structural invisibilisation of artistic and cultural work.
Biennials are not only exhibition formats. They also operate as infrastructural devices that shape urban economies, public imaginaries and territorial narratives. In many contexts, they intersect with tourism-driven development, where culture risks becoming a commodity and artists are increasingly positioned as content producers within economies of spectacle. Within this framework, biennials carry a growing responsibility toward the ecosystems they inhabit: social, cultural and infrastructural.
This webinar brings together four biennials with distinct geographies and methodologies to explore both resonances and divergences in how biennials are conceived, produced and evaluated today. The session is conceived not only as a comparative platform, but also as a space in which to question how biennials produce value, visibility and responsibility. Moving beyond quantitative metrics such as audience numbers, the discussion will focus on qualitative dimensions, including the capacity to generate new artistic collaborations, foster interdisciplinary exchange, support residencies and production processes, activate local contexts and engage previously unaddressed publics. The session does not aim to critique the biennial model from an external position, but rather to explore how curatorial methodologies operate within it and transform it from within.
BIENALSUR, led by Diana Wechsler, Artistic Director since 2015, proposes a decentralised and transnational model that connects institutions and cities across continents through an expanded network of exhibitions and events. Structured as a distributed platform rather than a single-site biennial, it establishes a dialogue between artistic practice, academic research and knowledge production, while charting an alternative global map that reconfigures traditional cultural geographies.
The Bukhara Biennial 2025, titled Recipes for Broken Hearts, commissioned by Gayane Umerova (Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation) and curated by Diana Campbell, Artistic Director, with the support of Assistant Curator Timur Zolotoev, introduces a new institutional experiment rooted in Central Asia. As its inaugural edition, the biennial foregrounds collaboration between artists and local artisans through processes of shared authorship. It recognises craft-based knowledge as a central component of contemporary artistic production, while engaging new audiences through context-specific and locally embedded practices.
The 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art 2025, titled passing the fugitive on, curated by Zasha Colah and Valentina Viviani, develops a curatorial approach grounded in fugitivity as both method and condition. The biennial adopts foxing as an operational strategy, navigating institutional pressures through forms of evasion, opacity and displacement, and foregrounding practices that engage with lived realities through situated and often subtle modes of intervention.
The Malta Biennale 2024, titled Insulaphilia and directed by Sofia Baldi Pighi, develops a Mediterranean and insular perspective that reflects on the geopolitical positioning of Malta within the central Mediterranean. Conceived within the island’s cultural heritage sites, the biennial positions artistic practice as a civic and pedagogical infrastructure, engaging with the Mediterranean as a space of conflict and civic resistance, while critically addressing the liminal and contested condition of European borders.
The session draws on ongoing research that considers artistic practices as operating within liminal conditions and contributing to the construction of alternative cultural imaginaries. Particular attention will be given to the role of on-site production and artistic labour, the function of public programmes as civic and pedagogical infrastructures, and the creation of long-term relationships between artists, institutions and territories.
The discussion will compare key dimensions of biennial-making, including funding structures, thematic frameworks, exhibition formats, community engagement and modes of public experience. It aims to outline how biennials might evolve from event-based formats into infrastructures of shared responsibility, capable of supporting cultural workers, institutions and communities, while critically engaging with the socio-political conditions that shape their existence.
SPEAKERS
Diana Wechsler
Artistic Director, BIENALSUR
Timur Zolotoev
Independent Curator / Assistant Curator, Bukhara Biennial 2025
Valentina Viviani
Independent Curator / Assistant Curator, 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art 2025
MODERATOR
Sofia Baldi Pighi
Independent Curator / Artistic Director, Malta Biennale 2024
To learn more and to register visit IKT Website